Kiev on Saturday launched a major drone strike on the Russian city of Kazan, 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from the border, the latest in a series of escalating air strikes in the nearly three-year conflict.
A drone crashed into a high-rise apartment building in Kazan, a city of more than 1.3 million, damaging a skyscraper but causing no injuries, local officials said.
Although attacks on Russian territory have so far been rare, the oil-rich region around Kazan and Tatarstan has previously been targeted by Ukrainian drones.
Such attacks are considered embarrassing for Russia almost three years after the military attack on Ukraine.
“Kazan suffered a massive drone attack today,” Tatarstan premier Rustam Minnikhanov said in a post on Telegram.
“Earlier there were attacks on industrial enterprises, now the enemy attacks civilians in the morning,” he said.
Videos on Russian social media networks showed drones attacking tall buildings and releasing fireballs.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said two drones attacked the 37-storey apartment block.
He said Ukraine was targeting an unspecified industrial facility but caused no damage.
Ukraine, which has carried out regular attacks on targets inside Russia since a full-scale military offensive began in February 2022, did not immediately comment.
Rosaviatsiya, the Russian civil aviation authority, temporarily closed Kazan International Airport, one of the country’s busiest.
Some residents were evacuated, but officials did not provide figures, and all major public events in the area were canceled as a precaution.
Zakharova said that along with the two drones that attacked the apartment block, three drones were shot down and three were suppressed by air defense systems.
In a post on Telegram, he said Kiev was “taking out the anger of the real military defeat on the peaceful population of Russia.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Saturday that the army had captured a new village near the key city of Kurakhov in eastern Ukraine, where Russian forces have made major advances in recent months.
The attack on Kazan came a day after a Russian attack on the Ukrainian capital Kiev left one dead and 13 injured, and five people were killed in a Ukrainian attack on the Russian border region of Kursk, where its troops have been waging an offensive since August. Are.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
